


You Came Back (I Came Home)

by JuniorWoofles



Series: Star Wars: Celebration [12]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-30 19:19:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10883268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuniorWoofles/pseuds/JuniorWoofles
Summary: Luke knew what he was doing when they bribed Han to come with them. He's expecting it when Han leaves, even when he wishes that he'd stay. Then Han comes back.A journey from ANH-RotJ





	You Came Back (I Came Home)

**Author's Note:**

> The only canon divergence is that Leia/Han isn't a thing, everything else happened as was.  
> Title is from Disney, inspired by AVPM

Han was reluctant at first. He had to be coaxed into staying. Well, bribed really. Luke had to bribe Han with an offer he didn’t know would be available in order to get him to come along. It was surprisingly easy to bribe Han to get him to go along with their mad scheme. Or maybe not surprisingly, he was a smuggler after all.

So with the promise of a beautiful princess and her alleged wealth Luke was really hoping she’d have, Luke was able to convince (really just con) Han into staying. He knew he was leading Han on but he didn’t really want to lie to him in order to get him to go along with them. He wanted Han to help him without the need for lies and bribes. He didn’t know why but he knew he would feel more comfortable with it all if Han just trusted him.

Luke knew trust was hard to come by, especially in the trade of smuggling. He couldn’t imagine Han having many people that he trusted. It was the walls he built up around him, the ones the prickled with unseen electricity that Luke could feel radiating off Han, no matter how charming he may appear to be, that told Luke that Han found it difficult to trust anyone.

Luke had only just met Han and yet he found it easy to read him. He found he knew what he could say to get him to follow him on insane, suicidal rescue missions. He could see what type of man Han was, on the surface, at least. He hoped the man underneath could trust him. He really hoped.

They left the cantina with a dead body slumped over the table and Luke left knowing that Han was running.

 

They were dressed as Stormtroopers and walking down corridors full of people that would be ready to kill them if they got caught. Left, right and centre there were guns and weapons and the taste of destruction hanging in the air. All around them identical corridors loomed on either side as they made their way to the detention block. They were right at the heart of the enemy looking for the princess they were here to rescue. Han was right to be reluctant when they were surrounded by this much danger. Luke himself was almost feeling hesitant now. Yet they had a need to be there, a cause and it was all for a princess on the enemy ship who needed to be freed.

As it turns out, she wasn’t as grateful or forthcoming as Luke might have hoped. She was right about the lack of an escape plan post-rescue though. She rescued them more they did for her. But it’s okay. Luke wasn't doing it alone. And maybe Han didn’t have the truest of intentions for coming along but he was still here. They were all still here, out of the trash compactor and the imminent crushing death.

So maybe Luke shouldn’t have expected Han to stay. He’d met the original terms of the agreement: a prize for a princess. He was still hurt when Han left though; when Han just up and left ~~~~him~~~~ them.

They still had a job to do. No matter what mess grief made of his heart he still had to keep going.

They rescued the princess, who in turn had rescued plans that could set them all on the path to freedom and victory. Luke didn't need to be bribed to stay. He was right where he had always wanted to be; long before princesses and Jedi Masters ands Wookies and devilishly handsome smugglers. His life had returned to the way he thought it was going to be before he had found Leia and Old Ben, and Han.

He didn’t know why he was grieving over something that he knew was coming. He knew a part of it was for Kenobi. But there was also a part that felt different. Luke didn’t have time to analyse it all now. Now he had another job, another mission, another task that seemed impossible. Except this time he felt alone. He wasn’t though. There was a whole fleet of rebels by his side, not just one smuggler and his Wookie. He felt more alone though.

He was flying like he had always dreamed of. Like he had always wanted to do. He could focus on that. On the controls, the stars blurring as he went past them, the way the Death Star grew closer and closer until he was dangerously close to crashing. Then he was trying to avoid being hit.

Then in his ear he heard it. The whooping of a friend he thought had left him. He hadn’t left him though and his heart soared with his spirits at the needed support. He could think over it all later but for now he had a friend in his corner. A friend who had come back to him. A friend who had come back to prove to him that he didn’t just need bribes to be there. Han was made of stronger stuff, of better stuff and he had reformed and he had come back to save Luke’s hide. Now Luke could complete the mission that he needed to; now that he had the support of the friend he needed behind him.

He could focus now. He didn’t have to be distracted by thoughts of Han and Old Ben. Ben was in his ear telling him to focus, to trust. He was telling him to believe. Now that Han had come back he could.

The Death Star blew up around them and Luke could hear Han’s cheers around him. He flew towards them and let them pull him across the galaxies and back down to Yavin IV. Luke couldn’t help the smile on his face. It was in stark contrast to before they left when Han was leaving them and the mission loomed ahead. Now the success lay behind them and Han was back by his side. Leia was there too, young and shining and happy. Luke couldn’t see his own happiness but he could see Han and Leia’s and he knew he must looked as happy as they did. At the very least when he looked at Han he saw the man he hoped that he was underneath. Now he knew that his initial outlook hadn’t been wholly right he was happier.

They stood side by side at the ceremony. Han had given him some clothes and Luke felt them settle on his shoulders, the jacket just ever so slightly too big for him. Leia was smiling down at them. Han stood by him, an equal, a comrade, a friend. She hung matching medals on their chest and Luke could feel the surface tension he had felt radiating of Han before had now changed so that he was radiating pure joy that was infecting Luke also. This isn’t where he thought he would have ended up but Luke wasn’t going to change it. He didn’t want any part of his journey to here to have been different. It may not have been the route he thought he’d be on but the people he had met had made everything worth it.

 

They were still worth it when he officially joined the Rebellion. Even when he was lost and isolated and had just finished running from a Wampa he didn’t regret it. He was going to freeze out in the drawing night of the ice planet Hoth but still he didn’t regret the things he had to have done to get to that point. Even on the brink of death, with the cold that was creeping into his system slowly beginning to freeze him from the inside, he couldn’t find it in himself to regret anything. Leia and Chewie and the rebellion meant too much to him. Han meant to much to him. Luke still wasn’t quite sure why he always categorised him separately. Maybe when he was dying wasn’t the right time to be analysing it but it was all the time he had left. He could just curl up, not able to go any further, and let the environment break his body down before it came to claim his mind. He could hold on to the part of his mind that hadn’t succumbed to brain freeze and try to think about the last three years. He was so tired though. His muscles were protesting and he could feel the snow clinging to his eyelashes. He could barely see now. It was weighing down on him, all of this ice and snow. He was clinging on to life as the snow was clinging to him.

The next thing he knew Han was there and then there was warmth. His senses were suddenly overwhelmed by heat and smells and he could blearily move his eyelashes as the snow quickly melted off it. There was body heat all around him, both wet and squishy and solid and hot. It was uncomfortable, the part of his brain still functioning told him that much. But there was Han right behind him, keeping him inside the TaunTaun, keeping him alive.

Luke fell asleep like that. Holding on while Han held onto him. Maybe he was holding on to Han too but he was too tired to tell. He was so tired and so he slept, ignoring the smell of the beast he was sleeping in or how warm Han’s presence was next to him.

In the morning, or at least hours later when the sun was up and the planet was a little less hostile, Han was taking him back to base. Han had only left him for a few moments to try and signal help so they could be rescued. Han didn’t go too far. He stayed close enough that Luke could call out for him if he needed to. Here was Han coming back to make sure he was alive. Making sure that he wouldn’t die while they were apart. The sunshine was hazy but Luke knew that much.

Even in his drugged up state in the bacta tank he could focus on that. It was helping. He wasn’t alone. He would have died if he was alone. But Han made sure that he hadn’t died. Han had made sure that he wasn’t alone.

 

They never had the chance to really talk. Luke had thanked Han but there was words still hanging heavy in the air that he didn’t know how to say. He felt like there always had been for the past three years. Luke had just never thought to talk about it with Han. Not seriously at least. Ever since the Battle of Yavin Luke had felt something that he couldn’t quite describe. He didn’t quite have the words to say what it was that he was feeling; or maybe he did know the words but was scared to say them out loud. Saying it out loud made it real. If he didn't think too hard about it or ponder over it for too long then it didn’t have to be real. Luke could brush off memories of hands lingering on shoulders and hugs that lasted a beat too long or the relief that flooded through him when he heard Han’s voice when he thought he never would again. It had happened one too many times now but it was still easier to walk away and not confront it. There were other things that needed confronting; more serious things that needed all their attention. There was still a war. There was still conflict. Luke could still do something to help.

So while Hoth was being evacuated Luke and Han were both eager to leave. They both did and they flew off in opposite directions without a backwards glance behind them, no matter if they both wanted to take one last look at what they were running away from.

 

Luke couldn’t stay away for too long. He was training with Master Yoda and it was what he had been putting off doing for years but now he knew that he had to be here and he was focusing on putting all his effort into training properly. Time was running out for the war efforts. He had to be ready. The easiest way to be ready was for him to train up and to put all his effort into it. He could do this. He could do this if he had faith.

Yet he could feel it. There was something off with those he loved and he had to go back to them. He had to. They were more important than his training. They always had been, even when he had run from them.

Through the stars they called out, their future pain echoing through to him. He could stop it if he left. He could do it if he ran back to them. His training was important, yes, and was essential to his part in the war, but they were more important. Chewie, Leia and Han. Although Master Yoda warned against him going, told him not to get attached, not to fall to the Dark Side, not to let them lead him astray with the paths that feelings can lead to, Luke left anyway. He didn’t have to try to make a decision. As soon as he felt their pain he knew what he had to do.

 

He was too late. He caught a glimpse of Leia being taken away down a corridor and that was it. Then he was fighting and maybe it really had all been nothing but a trap but even if he had known for sure, and maybe he did, he still would have come. If there was a chance that he could rescue them he would walk into any trap. He’d done it before after all. The first time they had all saved each other they went in against impossible odds and he was left just hoping that Han wouldn’t leave him to go through it all alone. Now Luke wasn’t going to be able to get to him in time. He knew it when he saw Vader in front of him and realised that no matter what else was happening in other parts of the City, that he would never get past Vader in time. He wasn’t ready for this fight but he had to.

He found Leia after. She was distraught but rightly so as she had been there. She had watched Han being taken away from them. She had to watch as they froze him and took him away as bounty for a debt that he had never paid.

You could bribe him to stay but the money hadn’t solved his problems. Now he was gone.

They watched from the window as Cloud City moved further and further away from them. As they left Bespin they made silent promises to each other that they would get him back. That they would go and prepare for it and then they would be able to. They weren’t able to leave him by himself. Not even in the state he was in where he might not be able to realise the passage of time or how painful the situation was. They would get him back first.

Luke looked down at his new hand and flexed the fingers on it. They would get Han back. He knew they would. Han had always come back for him and this time when he had come back for Han he was too late. Luke just needed a little bit of time and then he could fix it. He could right his mistake. He could go back for Han and be on time to save him.

He felt Leia behind him, a comfort he dearly needed. There were too many things running around in his head; many that she was not aware of because Luke wasn’t quite sure how to tell her. So they settled for silence as they made vows to return for Han when they could and rescue him from his fate.

 

It was months. Months that they left their friend as a trophy to his enemy. Months of training and planning and stewing and waiting until they were ready. Months of sitting with a heavy heart knowing that your friend had been subjected to the very fate that you were meant to face yourself. Luke knew he shouldn’t feel guilty over the workings of Vader’s plan but he did. He was the one the carbonite was for. Han had been taken as a test subject to see if it would even work first. He had fallen to his fate because of Luke. Because Luke hadn’t gotten back to him in time.

They were ready now. They went back for him knowing that they now could, that nothing could stop them. They went back knowing that their chances of survival, of Han’s survival, were high enough. Luke was coming back to rescue them.

They knew the dangers going in. They’d been planning it for months so how could they not? But any dangers were worth facing when it was his friends on the line. When he was saving them from a worser fate he would do anything to get them out. He’d put himself in harm’s way and fight and kill to get them out. He couldn’t feel remorse about it. He knew what he was doing was right and that it was all for Han. Anything was worth doing for Leia or the Rebellion or for Han.

He finally had Han back. It had only been months and yet it felt like a lifetime since he’d seen him, since he’d heard him. They had parted ways so suddenly on Hoth. Really they hadn’t truly been together since then. They hadn’t been together since the night when Han had saved Luke’s life. Here was Luke now, finally repaying that debt as he came back for his Han.

After the final battle Luke went down to Endor. He would bury his father later. Now he needed to be with the living, to check that they were still living. He went down to the surface and when he saw the people he was looking for were both alive and smiling he couldn’t help but to run at them. He couldn’t help but to run straight into Han’s arms, smiles breaking out on both their faces.

“Han!”

“Luke!”

And they embraced on the moon of Endor with the Ewoks dancing and celebrating around them. Luke could see it all so clearly now. He had always been drawn to his sister because that’s what she was. She shared his DNA, was the missing part of his soul and now he knew why he had always stared too hard at her face and tried to come up with reasons why there was an edge of familiarity to it. Now he knew.

And he knew about Han. He had maybe always known from the minute that he had slid in across from him in a booth at a seedy bar in the rough part of Tatooine. That seemed like a lifetime ago but really it had only been four years. So much could happen in only a few years but there were some things that didn’t change.

Luke could still read Han so easily. He could see the emotions written over Han’s face as though they were spelt out in a language only Luke could read. He was still hyper aware of Han’s presence and could always sense when he was near. It wasn’t just the Force. It never had been with Han. It was always something just a little bit different. Now Luke could see it for what it was, for what it always was.

It had been a long day. He was exhausted after fighting his father, and the Emperor and finally leading his father to his salvation. He’d seen his father die for him. He’d seen from the skies the battle of Endor as it raged below. It had been such a long day.

So when he ran to Han he didn’t let go. He let himself be hugged by him and breathed for the first time in what felt like years. It was a relief to do this, to be held and pretend that he was nineteen again. When he was naive and the universe just suddenly seemed so much bigger for the first time. He could pretend for a second that his future was unwritten and whatever he wanted it to be.

Then he realised it still was. His future, now more than ever, was whatever he wanted it to be. He could go and do whatever he wanted to do now. There were no limitations stopping him. It was the end of the line. The end of the journey. Four years ago he could have never imagined it ending here, surrounded by Ewoks, and his sister and his Han. Four years ago he could never have imagined that he would have Han.

He was still hugging Han and had probably been hugging him for too long now. Yet Han was making no move to let go of him either. Luke had caught Leia’s eye for a second and she had smiled back, eyes full of knowledge before she walked away. That was all the motivation Luke needed to confront what he had been avoiding thinking too hard about for years. Maybe he had never needed to think about it. So he didn’t think.

He shifted in Han’s arms a little and when Han turned to look at him in confusion it was so easy to lean up a little and press his lips against his. Luke almost didn’t dare look back at Han’s face when he fell back down a little. He had never felt scared that Han would turn away from him. He had found that Han always came back. That he always came back for him. But in that moment when everything was on the line Luke was scared that he had misread everything that he thought had been transparently open for him to see.

Han had known Luke for as long as Luke had known him. He could see the beginnings of panic on his face and tried to stop the fond exasperated smile that he reserved for Luke forming too noticeably before he closed the distance between them.

Luke was smiling back into the kiss. It was everything building up over the years finally being released. At the end of it all Han was right where he had always been; standing far too close with a charming manner that beckoned to Luke. They were right next to each other and Luke, despite all of the hardships of the wars and the exhaustion of the day, had never felt happier.

When they separated again Luke pressed one last quick press of his lips against Han’s before he curled his head under Han’s chin. He felt Han press a kiss to his head and Luke’s eyes fluttered shut as he leaned his head against Han’s heartbeat.

“How come this took us so long, kid?”

“I don’t know. Guess we were just busy.”

“No kidding. We were kind of fighting a war.”

“Do you remember the Death Star?”

“Which one?” Han laughed a little and Luke hummed against his chest.

“The first one.”

“Yeah. I think we’d only known each other for a day or so when that happened.”

“Mmm, that’s what I’m talking about.”

“What about it?”

“You came back.”

Han moved back slightly and Luke would have stumbled with it if he wasn’t still in Han’s arms. Instead he looked up and studied Han’s face.

“Of course I came back.”

“But why did you though? You had no reason to. I lied to you to get you to even rescue Leia with me in the first place.”

“Oh I remember. You were still a little farm boy back then but I could still read you.”

“You could?”

“Yeah. I always knew what you were thinking, Luke.”

“You know I’ve always kind of thought the same thing.”

Han kissed Luke’s forehead, his lips lingering on the spot. They were silent for a moment but it was okay. Sometimes they could tell what the other needed without words. “Do you know why I came back?”

“No?”

“I came back for you, you daft idiot.”

“Han, you barely even knew me then.”

“I didn’t have to. I knew that I needed to be there with you.”

“So you really came back for me?”

“I came back to you.” Han smiled at him and Luke almost melted further into Han’s arms if not for the fact that it wasn’t possible. “I came home to you, Luke,” he whispered and then they were kissing again and it was soft yet demanding, warm and loving like coming home after years away. It was finally waking up and realising that everything you had ever wanted was where it had always been: right next to you.

**Author's Note:**

> Yell at me on tumblr @cas-impala-pie


End file.
